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What a pleasure it was to sit through a tedious football match in which a thoroughly underwhelming England and a resolute Ghana managed not a single goal between them. Because at least I knew who I was rooting for. There’s something worse than watching a match in which your team struggles, and that’s watching a match in which you have not one team, but two. One dog in a fight is stressful enough; two is miserable – trust me.

I went through this in England’s first World Cup match, against Croatia. I’m half one, half the other. A citizen of both countries. Torn.

You may say that I couldn’t lose, that I’d be a winner either way. But that’s you, not me. I felt more like a loser either way. Stinking thinking, I know, but there you go. A draw would have been nice, but football’s rarely nice to me.

I was asked so many times who I’d be supporting, by strangers, by people I’d not heard from in ages, that by the time it kicked off I wasn’t sure myself. This must be how Richard Williams felt at Wimbledon when his daughters Serena and Venus played each other. It’s the impossible choice. Although he had it easier, because in tennis there has to be a winner, so he couldn’t hope for a draw. And as every football fan knows, it’s the hope that kills you.

How refreshing, then, to get behind England properly and really share in the dismay and frustration at our inability to get past Ghana. It felt so good, that pure, untempered disappointment, which I’d missed so much in the Croatia match, which was, for me, a zero-sum game in which one team’s triumph was undermined by my other team’s distress.

Having enjoyed the uncomplicated letdown of our (as in England’s) match against Ghana, it was time to watch us (as in Croatia) kick off at midnight against lowly Panama. A win was essential. I was so overwhelmed by the purity of this need that I’m afraid I fell asleep. I woke up with five harrowing minutes left to play as we (Croatia) clung on for a 1-0 win.

And then I lay awake half the night worrying that if we (England and Croatia) both progress to the knockout stage, we (Croatia) could possibly end up playing us (England) again. Please, no, anything but that.

• Adrian Chiles is a writer, broadcaster and Guardian columnist